A typical example of conventional vehicle rear body structures is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication (JP-A) No. 2000-16338. The disclosed vehicle rear body structure, as shown in FIG. 10 hereof, includes a body floor 201, a wheel house 202 provided on the body floor 201 for covering an upper part of a rear wheel (not shown), a damper housing 204 disposed on the body floor 201 adjacent the wheel house 202 for supporting a damper 203, and a gusset 205 connecting a rear part of the wheel house to a side panel 216 and a rear panel 217 for reinforcing part of the rear body structure 200 in the vicinity of the wheel house 202 and the damper housing 204.
The damper housing 204 has a vertical sidewall 206 connected to the wheel house 202 and a horizontal upper wall as a damper base 207 connected to the gusset 205 and the rear panel 217. The damper base 207 has a through-hole 208 and a pair of bolt-insertion holes 209, 209 located near the through-hole 208 in diametrically opposite relation to each other. The damper 203 includes a mounting flange 213 and a coil spring 215 disposed below the mounting flange 213. The mounting flange 213 has a cylindrical protrusion 211 and a pair of bolts 212, 212 disposed near the protrusion 211 in diametrically opposite relation to each other. For assembly of the damper 203 relative to the vehicle body, the cylindrical portion 211 and the bolts 212 are inserted through the through-hole 208 and the bolt-insertion holes 209, respectively, from below until the mounting flange 213 is in abutment with an underside of the damper base 207, and while keeping this condition, a pair of nuts 214, 214 are screwed onto the bolts 212, 212 to firmly secure the mounting flange 213 to the damper base 207.
With the vehicle rear body structure 200 of the foregoing construction, since the gusset 205 serving as a reinforcing member is not connected to the body floor 201 and the damper 203 itself, the rear body structure 200 may be deformed at a portion adjacent the damper housing 204 due to a force applied from the damper 203 to the damper base 207 of the damper housing 204. To deal with this problem, an attempt may be made to increase the rigidity of the damper base 207 by increasing the thickness of the damper base 207, however, the thickened damper base 207 will undesirably increase the weight of the vehicle body.
Another problem associated with the conventional rear body structure 200 is that during the assembly of the damper 203 relative to the damper housing 204, the damper 203 must be supported from below so as to keep the mounting flange 213 in abutment with the underside of damper base 207 until the nuts 214 are tightly screwed onto the bolts 212. This operation makes the damper 203 relatively uneasy to assembly and lowers the assembling efficiency of the vehicle body.